


tomorrow lies farther east

by bubbleteahime



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: America/South Korea if you squint, Character Study, Current Events, East Asia is NOT a family, Gen, Headcanon Until Proven Otherwise, Historical Hetalia, Historical References, It is a diverse and nuanced region with a lot of issues!, Japan/Taiwan if you squint, Modern Era, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, Politics, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:46:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubbleteahime/pseuds/bubbleteahime
Summary: A tomorrow lies farther east, but yesterday lives in all our todays.—or, East Asia in seven parts. ( non-linear )
Relationships: China & Hong Kong & Japan & North Korea & South Korea & Taiwan (Hetalia), China & Japan (Hetalia), Hong Kong & Taiwan (Hetalia), Japan & South Korea (Hetalia), Japan & Taiwan (Hetalia), North Korea & South Korea (Hetalia)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 43





	tomorrow lies farther east

壹、

A black cat walks on the fence. One step after another, the way seasons turn. High above its head, a tall window frames the reflection of a beautiful sunset after the seasonal afternoon rain. 

But the monsoon continues indoors. Through the sunset’s reflection, two figures share heated words. Words like “reparations” and “comfort women” and “responsibility” and “apologies” and “regional security” and— 

Japan huffs as South Korea storms off. The air remains charged. He takes a few deep breaths until his fists unclench. 

“We have to work together,” Japan comments to Taiwan as she comes up beside him with a cup of water in her hand as if she weren’t listening in on his entire argument with South Korea. America’s shadow looms even when he isn’t here. 

“I don’t understand why he keeps having to make this an issue, unlike you.”

 _Unlike us._

He smiles at her because she is the only one of his neighbors that he genuinely gets along with, and she smiles back at him, just the way he knew she would. 

She says, 

“Just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.” 

For a moment, her brown eyes glow faintly in the last light of day, as feral as the first time he saw her and called her _Takasago_. Then Taiwan brushes past him and stalks off in the opposite direction. 

Japan looks outside the window and watches the sun settle beneath rooftops in the west. The northwest wind picks up. Birds take off and disappear into the night sky.

貳、

They have fought from dawn to dusk at the mouth of the Yalu River. Perhaps on the banks. Perhaps on the tumbling waters. Bells and drums and cymbals. They have fought from dusk to dawn, but it feels like mere minutes. (In the long song of history, perhaps it is.)

Three centuries ago on this same peninsula, China had beaten Japan, Korea watching from a distance. Idly, he wonders if they are watching now.

His head is not in the fight. No matter how much he bleeds, he can’t seem to get the opium out of his veins. Japan manages to cut a rather large chunk of flesh from his arm, and it rots the instant it lands on soil. China stares, not particularly surprised considering the corruption in his regime. 

Japan takes his distraction as an opportunity to kick him in the stomach, bringing him to his knees. When China looks up, there is a gun to his head.

_The absurdity of it._

China laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and then he smiles.

So, this is what history gets wrong about the First Sino-Japan War: 

The humiliation, the shock, the fury, the betrayal, the self-reflection, the outrage, the peculiar numbness of watching the world turn upside down—they will all come later. 

In the instant of defeat, seeing his own bloodied reflection in Japan’s obsidian eyes, China is _proud_. 

The blue that comes from blue is yet more blue. 

(And if there is anything he has learned from living this long, it is that history is cyclical.)

叁、

Hong Kong and Taiwan are very close these days. Close in a way that blood doesn’t bind them. About five years ago—that was when their recurring dreams began. 

China cannot read his mind (yet), but he must know, somehow. It has become harder and harder for Hong Kong to see Taiwan in person. It isn’t easy when he sees her either. He keeps remembering an exchange they had, just a few decades ago, when he was a democracy and she was under authoritarian rule:

_“Most days I keep my head down, live a life with ears but no mouth.”_

He had looked up then, half-disinterested. _"Most days?”_

_“Other days I burn.”_

He remembers now, and he swallows down a searing envy at how she has come to know who she is and who she isn’t, while he— 

He doesn’t know. He sleeps. 

The dreams involve mirrors, and they are always on opposite sides. 

「今日香港，明日台灣 」  
 _( Today’s Hong Kong, Tomorrow’s Taiwan. )_

Darkness, tear gas and smoke and sometimes even bullets, envelops Hong Kong. Taiwan fights to break the mirror, break the cycle from her end. His silhouette sharpens even as he disintegrates. 

She wakes up with a soundless scream and makes a call to Hong Kong, fingers fumbling to type in his number and press the call button. 

No response. 

They never talk about these dreams awake. 

As the sun rises over her island, Taiwan thinks about prisoners, political dissidents, and protestors on streets running crimson, about Hong Kong today and how, maybe, blood does bind them after all. 

肆、

His brother is known to everyone else as Korea, but his brother calls him Balhae and Goguryeo. Goryeo prefers to call his brother Joseon or Silla. They are both Korea. 

They managed to establish a provisional government in Shanghai together after March 1, 1919—before his brother was dragged back under Japan’s watch. Goryeo was able to evade the bastard and stay in Manchuria to fight in ways his brother doesn’t agree with. 

When he was called Balhae, these lands were familiar, his. Something in him stirs, beyond wanting to get rid of Japan’s control over him and his brother for good. Perhaps it is his history that calls him to arms, once more. Perhaps it is the future.

A sudden familiarity strikes when he looks at a Chinese officer his militia group is working with. Not quite human, he says to Goryeo, 

“You look better here. Worried about fading if Korea becomes independent again?” 

China is very different now, without an emperor, but he uses his words like a fatal weapon. Goryeo’s jaw tightens.

“Balance is integral to Korea. You have seen our flag.” 

It is not an answer. China’s face flickers, like flame, like water, on whoever’s face he is wearing for now. 

“Besides, I just want to be left undisturbed. I am sick of empires and the way their self-interests stain our lands.” 

His eyes glint like steel as he holds China’s gaze.

Goryeo watches as China turns away, presence fading into the human. He picks at the dry grass and crushes it in his hand.

伍、

It is late spring, but a frostbitten silence hangs over this particular table. 

Nonetheless, China says, 

“It’s a shame we don’t do this more often.”

“Yes, I wonder why.” 

Taiwan smiles like a snarl. He had taken yet another one of her remaining diplomatic allies at the beginning of the month. She visited Japan over the weekend to vent, not expecting China nor South Korea to arrive early for their trilateral summit. 

China hums serenely, an undetectable fatigue at the very bottom of his ancient gaze. 

“I am far more than the government that rules me.”

“They’re still you.” 

Japan puts a hand over Taiwan’s under the table, a placating gesture without betraying his concern with a glance. He attempts to diffuse the tension with a diplomatic, 

“Well, and there are always times when our governments do things that we do not represent.” 

“Of course _you_ would say that,” South Korea laughs coldly. 

Japan’s eyes flash, and he opens his mouth to give a sharp rebuke when a waitress brings them tea. Whatever was bubbling at the surface simmers down as they murmur their thanks politely. 

“I’ve missed seeing everyone together like this,” China says, softly breaking the quiet. 

“One day we can all eat at my table again.”

Underneath the table, Japan’s hand tightens over Taiwan’s. On his face is an ever-so cordial smile directed at China, who smiles back ever-so kindly and paternally, even. Taiwan and South Korea exchange a glance that says nothing yet everything. 

It is as much of a threat as a sincere wish. 

陸、

He will not remember the moment they signed the armistice clearly, even though it cuts him sharper than almost any other moment in history. The memory will fade into rain so soft and hazy it reminds him of tears, of a mother they share but don’t remember. 

_It was a blur_ , he will say. He simply watched with a growing numbness as human dignitaries signed the armistice under the watchful eyes of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America, his brother on the other end of the table. 

This is the border. This is the demilitarized zone. This is South Korea, and that is North Korea. 

It is done.

The moment that is burned into his memory happens when they leave:

South Korea pauses, turning back to look at North Korea, his brother. He can barely make out the faint outline of his brother behind China, and then the Soviet Union. Something catches in his throat. The cries of separated families, perhaps. Nothing comes out of his mouth. There are no words, not really. 

“Come on,” America murmurs to him softly, a warm hand pressing against South Korea’s back. 

He nods in response, turning away one last time. 

With every resolute step away from his brother, an eternal mugunghwa wilts while another one blossoms from the ashes of their battlefields. 

He will walk his path, and his brother will walk his. They will each walk their separate paths until their destinies converge once more. Yes, South Korea thinks. He will walk this path.

柒、

Taiwan still gets the distinct feeling of waiting sometimes. 

Late at night, with just her bedside light on, as she is getting ready to sleep, she feels as if she were waiting. 

The northwest rain falls like murmurs on the street. She watches the lights flicker once, twice. The wind howls, and flowers land in the mud. A rainy haze envelops the world outside, as if people could just disappear once they walked into that mist. The unyielding current of history (or is it destiny?) burns through her bedroom as she looks outside her window, waiting, still, for flowers that will never bloom, people that will never return. 

A tear drips from a corner of her unseeing eyes. 

Then the air that now flows freely rushes to fill her lungs, and she gasps, remembering where she is and who she is. 

_南無觀世音菩薩。 ( Namo Lokeshvaraya )_ , Taiwan thinks, her heart still pounding. 

She shoots a quick prayer to the white-robed goddess of mercy—a check-in, really—like a sky lantern in the dark, like a simple wish for freedom in the dark. 

_In the next life,_ she thinks. She will see them in their next lives. _Please watch over them until then. Please watch over us all._

Falling back on her bed, she recites some names—victims of a four decades-long White Terror—until she falls asleep to a fragile dawn that inches forward centimeter by centimeter. 

There is a silent ringing in her ears as her consciousness sinks. Like the lull of the sea, like the absence of sound following an executioner’s gunshot. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a late contribution to APH Asia Week 2020. 
> 
> Each vignette has a word count of 250-260 words. This is the approximate time and context for each of them:  
> 1\. Modern: Japan’s inability to face up its imperial history and its ongoing feud with South Korea over comfort women and forced labor during World War II  
> 2\. History: The First Sino-Japanese War, specifically the Battle of the Yellow Sea  
> 3\. Modern: Taiwan and Hong Kong’s democratic solidarity  
> 4\. History: The Korean Independence Movement under Japanese colonial rule and how some of the armed resistance was based in northern China  
> 5\. Modern: China’s contemporary rise, set during the weekend before the Japan-China-South Korea trilateral summit in 2018 May  
> 6\. History: The Korean Armistice, the division of North and South Korea  
> 7\. Modern: Taiwan and the quiet legacy of the 228 Incident/white terror under martial law
> 
> Although I have done sufficient reading before writing this fic, I can’t say that I feel like I have done satisfactory research for all of these vignettes, so, this fic, while compliant with my own canon, is still what I consider hcupo (headcanon until proven otherwise). 
> 
> That being said, however, I also reserve my right to work through historical/political issues that concern my home/region as if I am a literary cowboy straddling the violent, bucking bull of real life geopolitics/nations with long and difficult histories and relationships with each other. I decided to take on this rodeo because I want to inject some nuance, complexity, and reality in the portrayal of East Asia in the English-speaking Hetalia fandom, which mostly altogether ignored their issues/diversity and painted an image of them as a happy family or other times portrayed it in a way that can be insensitive just for the #edginess. I do not want to shy away from the sensitive political and historical issues that are very much present in the region, but I also want to look at it in a way that is thoughtful and accurate (or at least reflective of a nation's perspective). 
> 
> I am not opening my inbox nor the reviews for debate over the politics/history I touch on in this fic. This is merely an interpretation trying to explore the perspectives of these national personifications, which has inherent debates over who is represented and how they see certain things. I've done my best to account for perspectives of people, international relations, and the "immortal" personifications themselves, and it is still something that continues to evolve and change with what I learn. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. Please feel free to leave a kudos and review if you enjoyed the fic!


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